Saturday, 25 October 2008

Harsh economic and social realities have compelled the United Kingdom to lower immigration targets amid rising unemployment and fears of increasing racial tension. What makes this announcement all the more astonishing is that it is a Labour Party government in London that's doing it. This is like an NDP government in Ottawa cutting immigration numbers but unlike their U.K. counterparts such talk will never come from the NDP who are just as dependent on "ethnic votes" as are the Liberal Party and increasingly the Conservative Party. This is ironic since immigration has always been, and still is, used as a weapon to attack the labour movement and any gains it has made for the working people of Canada over the past century.

Strict limits are to be imposed on immigration amid fears that unemployment rises in the economic downturn will fuel racial tension.

[...]

In what many will see as extraordinary remarks for a Labour minister, he told The Times that the economic backdrop changed everything. “If people are being made unemployed, the question of immigration becomes extremely thorny . . . It’s been too easy to get into this country in the past and it’s going to get harder,” he said.

[...]

Until now the Government has shied away from curbing levels of immigration, which have reached record levels under Labour.

[...]

With immigration still a big issue of public concern, Labour is under pressure to toughen its approach after the Tories revealed plans for annual limits on numbers entering the country.

[...]

Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migrationwatch, which argues for balanced migration, described Mr Woolas’s comments as a potential breakthrough. “It is the first time that a government minister has actually linked immigration and population. If they succeed in delivering, they will have done our country a considerable service,” he said.

It's unfortunate such frank discussion is rarely voiced by Canadian politicians especially from those whose party forms the current government. Those who do are typically denounced as racist or bigoted or xenophobic in the media and then told to shut up by party leaders when the only crime they committed was being patriotic.

What we really learn here is that there is such a thing as too much immigration and the United Kingdom has been forced to accept this fact whether it wanted to or not. Like Canada, public discourse concerning immigration in the U.K. has been dominated by multiculturalist rhetoric where the sky's the limit when it comes to setting immigration targets. But this is all fantasy. Focusing on the superficial benefits of mass immigration, like the diversity it brings and the many ethnic restaurants you can eat at, distracts us from addressing the more pertinent and pressing concerns that mass immigration imposes onto a host society. Such concerns are employment, poverty, crime, integration and assimilation, ethnic enclaving, transformation of Canadian public spaces to foreign ones, reducing the host population to minority status, immigrant as colonialist, threats to the environment, increasing density, traffic congestion and pollution, etc.

The U.K.'s recent reversal follows on the heals of Spain's immigration problem where boom times turned bust burdening that country with a superfluous immigrant population imported to feed the period of growth. And now the country doesn't know what to do with them. Australia revamped its points system that effectively weeds out immigrants before they land, a move that is enjoying remarkable success.

Of course we are told that Canada is suffering from a job shortage and therefore Canada's situation is different from the U.K. And so restricting immigration numbers it harmful to the current and future health of the economy. But what kinds of jobs are going unfilled is rarely made clear. When the details do creep out we learn that many of these jobs are part time or temporary and low waged. We are told immigrants are needed to sustain job growth even though many, many immigrants to Canada have failed to secure employment in their fields. The premier of Saskatchewan was in Ontario recently trying to attract immigrants to his "booming" province but admitted to the Toronto Star that many of the immigrants are overqualified for most of the jobs going unfilled leaving us to speculate as to what he means by that. Also, Canada has the highest educated workforce in the industrialized world, more so than the United States, Germany, and Japan so why more immigrants? Also, many immigrant communities are plagued by poverty rates and chronic underemployed yet if Canada is desperate for skilled workers then why are these immigrants skilled being passed over by Canada's business community? Can systemic discrimination always be the reason or is it becuase Canada's job shortage is mostly in low waged, low skilled, part time and temp jobs?

These lessons fall on deaf Canadian ears. The move to reduce immigration targets in the U.K. was barely mentioned in the Toronto Star (but generating many comments illustrating immigration is a hot topic for Canadians). As there are global examples that uncontrolled mass immigration is a problem, and that some countries are acting to control and restrict immigration, Canadians are still being told we need even more immigrants, the reasons being speculative and assumptive. As the U.K., Spain, and Australia seek greater control and restrictions to their immigration systems Canada is still being burdened with the highest immigration intake in the world and if some people have their way that burden will become heavier, economic and social realties be damned.

Thursday, 23 October 2008

Canada's well indoctrinated journalists always fail to connect increasing poverty rates with Canada's mass immigration numbers even though there is much evidence to connect the two. That's because their brains have been programed not to. That's why they are working journalists. Canadian newspapers are first and foremost profit maximizing businesses overseen by a board of directors that pays close attention to stock quotes. And a newspaper's audience base is it's prime revenue generator becuase it is these figures coupled with circulation numbers that a daily uses to set prices to charge to potential advertisers.

Mass immigration increases population numbers and thus is a source of potential growth for Canada's journals of record. That's why they are almost all pro mass immigration and rarely offer dissenting views that have the potential to influence public opinion and policy makers that will result in lower immigration numbers. No journalist critical of mass immigration will get his or her work regularly published, let alone get hired, in any of Canada's newspapers becuase opinions supporting the reduction of immigration numbers is an attack on profits. That's why in thisToronto Star article no mention is made of how mass immigration may be contributing to the growing income gap.

Poverty and inequality rates in Canada have been on the rise since 1995 and are now higher than the average developed nation, according to a new study.

The income gap is growing throughout the developed world, but the gap between rich and poor in Canada widened more dramatically than in most countries between 1995 and 2005, according to the report released in Paris today.

The above is made all the more clearer when mass immigration is taken into account. Over the past twenty years Canadian immigration policy has shifted away from meeting Canada's real economic needs and more to a humanitarian program where more unskilled immigrants enter the country than skilled immigrants. Canadian immigration policy is effectively divorced from economic necessity where downturns in the economy no longer compel governments to lower immigration targets. It was in the late 1980s (1988 I believe) when the Progressive Conservative government upped the immigration levels by 100,000 a year. It was also in the 1980s (1985 I believe) when the Singh decision was made granting Charter protection to anyone on Canadian soil prompting a flood of economic migrants to Canada's shores to pose as bogus refugees and abuse the asylum system. Being flooded with waves of superfluous people imported to fill vacancies in low wage part time and temp jobs, effectively attacking any gains made by the labour movement for fair pay and pay equity, it should be no surprise to learn that poverty and inequality rates have been on the increase since 1995. And now Canadian rates are higher than the average industrial nation. This too is no surprise. Canada has the highest immigration intake in the world doling out citizenship the way treats are given away on Halloween. If we include foreign workers and illegal immigrants (which includes failed refugees and those who have no intention of leaving after their visa expires) then it is likely Canada is taking in between 350,000 to 400,000 people a year.

"After 20 years of continuous decline, both inequality and poverty rates (in Canada) have increased rapidly in the past 10 years, now reaching levels above the OECD average," says the report.

As in other countries, more single-parent households and people living alone are contributing to income inequality in Canada.

And wages for the rich are increasing, while they have been stagnating or dropping for middle and lower income workers, the report says.

Most affected have been young adults and families with children.

Canada spends less on cash transfers, such as unemployment and family benefits, than other OECD countries and that may be one of the reasons the country fares worse than others, the report suggests.

The report echoes concerns raised by Canadian social research groups about growing income disparity in Canada at a time of strong economic growth.

What do I mean by "importing the third world model"? It is something I have borrowed from American lefty dissident Noam Chomsky and applied it to Canada. What it means is that advanced industrialized countries such as the United States and Canada are adopting the characteristics familiar with third world countries and their economies.

One key characteristic of the third world model is the high amount of foreign ownership of a third world economy. Here Canada can consider itself an honorary member as our country's economy is the most foreign owned of all the G8 nations.

The other key characteristic is great wealth disparity and it seems Canada is on track to satisfy this one as well. It is more than accepted now that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer in this country. The attack on the middle class is happening on several fronts and one of the key weapons is mass immigration. It makes no sense to be importing people into Canada's economy when all that awaits them are insecure jobs and poverty wages. It makes no sense to import people who flood labour markets and hinder or reverse wage and salary gains. It makes no sense to keep immigration levels high when poverty rates and inequality rates have been consistently increasing for the past ten years. It makes no sense to keep immigration levels high when the economic outlook is gloomy.

Such a study by the OECD should stop one to think about the situation and look to see what are its causes so the problem can be rectified. One of the major causes for Canada's poor performance is becuase of mass immigration. A chart accompanied the print edition of this piece and all the major immigration receiving nations (the U.K., the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, and Canada) fared relatively poorly. We are importing poverty.

If poverty activists are serious they should pressure the government to reduce immigration targets because large immigration levels hurt the most economically vulnerable of Canadians. Wages can be kept low, illegals can be exploited, and immigrants lured here on lies and materialistic fantasies of excess often find themselves in desperate situations when the harsh reality of Canada's labour market forces them to take any job just to survive. If Canada maintains its high intake of immigrants despite the warning signs suggesting that the numbers are too many then poverty rates will barely change and most likely keep increasing. Reducing immigration numbers is one of the issues we must address if we wish to get serious about poverty.

Friday, 17 October 2008

Peel Region is on Toronto's western border and home to the cities of Mississauga and Brampton. Suffering from the spill over effect from Toronto caused by rapid population growth these once safe and relatively crime free cities are experiencing big city problems. But these towns are not that small anymore as immigrants unable to find affordable accommodations were forced to look at Toronto's border communities to find housing. And with them they brought over population and poverty, the kind of mix crime thrives in.

Here is a Toronto Star piece about the recent spat of violence that in the Peel Region pushing its murder rate to a record high.

Why so many murders in Peel?

Oct 16, 2008 04:30 AMRobyn DoolittleBob MitchellStaff Reporters

In the wake of the deaths of four young men on the suburban streets of Mississauga and Brampton since Saturday, community leaders are warning of a potential explosion of youth violence in Peel Region.

They say the window of opportunity to gain control of the problem is rapidly closing as Peel's total homicide tally reached a record 24 on Tuesday.

[...]

"When you've got 30,000 new people coming into your community every year and a third of those are youth, and we don't have the capacity to provide the services (and) they're not getting the support they need, something is going to break and this is the tragedy," she said.

[...]

Tony da Silva, a trustee with the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board, says the major fear is that as Peel gets larger and larger, urban issues such as guns, gangs and drugs are moving into the region.

"We want to address those early so they don't become larger issues, like some of the troubled communities in Toronto are having to deal with," he said.

[...]

When Raymond Caldeira moved to Brampton from Port Credit 15 years ago, he was looking for the quiet, family sitcom-style life.

"Brampton used to be a really nice place. Now it's just overpopulated big time," he said.

"It doesn't matter where you move. You can't shop. You can't park. You can't do anything. Everybody is just very inconsiderate – pushing and shoving."

Over the past five years, Brampton's population has swollen by 33 per cent. It's a similar story in Mississauga.

Of Peel's current population – 1.2 million – about 10 per cent live in poverty, said White.

With poverty comes crime.

Driving that population growth is immigration particularly South Asian immigration from the Punjab region of India. This is especially true for Brampton. Judging from the news reports many of the violent offenses that occur in Peel has a South Asian twist to it. Indeed, it seems Peel's Punjabi community is fearful of "Vancouver Style" teen violence as reported by thisToroto Star article.

Punjabis in Peel warn of teen violence

Say recent stabbing death could herald rise of a `Vancouver scenario' with teen gangs doing battleMar 09, 2007 04:30 AMBe the first to comment on this article...San Grewalstaff reporter

The stabbing death of a Punjabi youth five weeks ago, allegedly at the hands of another Punjabi teen, has members of the community around Peel fearing a "Vancouver-style" conflict.

Atinder Singh, 18, of Brampton was killed after attending a house party in London Jan. 28.

Kulvir Grewal, 18, is charged with second-degree murder.

The incident underscores a deep problem within Peel's Punjabi community, say organizers of an anti-violence rally held last month.

"We don't want to see the Vancouver scenario here," says Rajveer Singh, referring to the more than 100 deaths in B.C. over the last 10 years involving Punjabi-on-Punjabi, gang-related violence.

Singh co-founded "End The Violence" an organization now active around Peel, in hopes of stopping escalating tensions within the region's Punjabi community.

At a rally last month at the Dixie Gurdwara, the largest Sikh temple in North America, more than a thousand students, many from rival groups, showed up, Singh says.

The tensions are "not as bad as Vancouver and it's not really organized here right now, but it's getting there," he said.

31-year-old gave hoodie to alleged shooter still wanted by police in slaying of womanOct 15, 2008 04:30 AMBob MitchellStaff Reporter

A devastated father doubts the man who murdered his daughter Amretta four years ago will ever be caught.

But even if police arrest Vijayarajah (Vijay) Manickavasagar, a.k.a. "Bullet" – believed to be hiding in Sri Lanka – Jairam Singh wonders if justice will be served after yesterday's sentencing of a third man involved in his daughter's slaying.

[...]

An Interpol alert remains in place for Manickavasagar, who police say fled to Sri Lanka within days of the deadly shooting. Now 27, he remains one of Canada's most wanted fugitives. Police say at the time of the killing, the man known on the street as "Bullet" was affiliated with three Sri Lankan gangs in the Greater Toronto Area: the Guilder Boys, the Kipling Boys and the VVT, an offshoot of the Tamil Tigers, a pro-separatist group in Sri Lanka.

Three Sri Lankan street gangs. And we gave refuge to these people. But if you read this blog you'll know I believe that most Sri Lankan refugees to Canada are bogus refugees anyways and the presence of three Sri Lankan street gangs on Toronto's streets is more proof to that.

Mass immigration has not been good to Peel Region as it has not been good to southern Ontario as a whole. There is a connection between mass immigration and rising crime rates in Canadian cities and that's because Canada is no position to absorb, socially and economically, the numbers of immigrants the country receives. And because of this immigration is sustaining existing poverty rates in Canada as well as creating poverty where there was none to be found. Canada accepts too many immigrants and if we wish to tackle poverty, the father of crime, then we need to accept this as fact and reduce the numbers.

Saturday, 11 October 2008

While the headline "Record number of jobs created in September" may reassure mass immigration advocates that Canada's unacceptably high immigrant numbers are needed to fill job vacancies they should temper their enthusiasm with a dose of reality, an act I know is strange to them. Here is the Toronto Star article. While reading it keep in mind that 1/3 of all jobs are temp jobs.

OTTAWA–Prime Minister Stephen Harper leapt on the news that Canada created a record 107,000 new jobs last month as evidence his government has the right policies for the economy.

The massive number – the largest since Statistics Canada began tabulating labour statistics in this manner in 1976 – shocked economists who had been forecasting a modest pick-up in the 12,500 range.

[...]

However 90 per cent of last month's new jobs – 97,000 – were part-time, and the official unemployment rate remained at 6.1 per cent because more Canadians were looking for work.

"It seems like everyone has a paper route these days," commented CIBC World Markets economist Avery Shenfeld. "How else to explain how Canada created 97,000 part-time jobs in a single month, during a period of severe economic strain across the country?"

The Canadian Labour Congress said the "low-quality" new jobs offer "an omen of tough economic times."

[...]

Statistics Canada concedes the survey of 53,000 households has an error factor of plus or minus 43,500 jobs from the 107,000 number, 90 per cent of the time.

Is it just me or does there seem to be a lot of franchises going up all over the place. Is this the future job growth Canada is producing and needs immigrants for?

The actual title of thisToronto Star article is "Sprawl eating eating away at prime farmland" but I figured no point in dodging the real issue.

Sprawl eating away at prime farmland

At the same time, demand for locally grown food is on the rise, says Agricultural Action CommitteeOct 09, 2008 04:30 AMMoira WelshEnvironment Reporter

Prime farmland in the greater Toronto region is being gobbled up by urban sprawl at the same time that consumer demand for locally grown food is on the rise, says an agricultural expert.

"Assuming sprawl will continue, it will eat up the better land in the GTA," Elbert van Donkersgoed, executive director of the Greater Toronto Area Agricultural Action Committee, said yesterday.

The greenbelt protections in the GTA – forbidding development on a tract of land that rings the region – do not protect much of the best quality farmland, van Donkersgoed said at a breakfast session of the Canadian Urban Institute.

"We have created a protected countryside. We have also left a whole chunk of the countryside unprotected."

Yet another report yet warning about the environmental consequences associated with urban sprawl and yet another report that fails to mention that mass immigration is the prime driving force behind it.

I'm going to say this again. No environmentalist can be taken seriously if he or she refuses to discuss mass immigration as a prime threat to the environment. If you really want to do something to protect Canada's farmlands and natural habitat then demand a reduction in Canada's immigration intake. This is the most cost effective solution that will produce the most immediate environmentally positive results. Doing so is a step in the right direction since Canada accepts far more immigrants than it really needs.

Here is a Toronto Star "pity piece" concerning the financial plight of immigrant seniors. These are not immigrants to Canada who became seniors while living and working in Canada. These are people Canada imported when they were at or above the age or retirement.

At 73, Balkar Singh Bajwa cares for his two grandsons, taking them to school, parks and doctors' appointments.

At times, the Brampton man, a retired principal from India, gets calls to work as a certified Punjabi translator. The little money he makes is his sole income.

"Many of us, immigrant seniors, are penniless. If you need money, you have to put your hands out and ask your children for money," sighed Bajwa, who came here in 1999 under his son's sponsorship and is a naturalized citizen.

Doing the math this gentleman was allowed to come to Canada at the youthful age of 64. The question is why did Canada allow him to immigrate at such an old age when the nation has an aging population. According to the article, he was sponsored by his son who is legally obligated to met his father's needs. So why is the man needing to to ask his son for money when it is his son's obligation to do so? Did his son import his aged father to dump the financial obligations of caring for him, including publicly funded health care, onto the Canadian public? This Punjabi immigrant may feel embarrassed to extend his hand to his son for financial aid but he seems to have no problem extending his hand to the government.

Unlike their Canadian-born counterparts, most immigrant seniors are not entitled to government income supports, such as old age security or the guaranteed income supplement, until they have lived in Canada for 10 years.

In order to receive the maximum monthly benefits of $1,100, elderly immigrants must have lived in Canada for 40 years and arrived by the age of 18 to qualify.

That makes sense, so obvious in fact that I don't think I need to explain why.

Immigrant seniors from the 50 countries that have reciprocal agreements with Canada are not bound by the residency limit, but most of today's newcomers are from the developing world and lack any social safety net. About 2.3 per cent of Canada's annual 250,000 landed immigrants are seniors.

Doing the math again 2.3% of 250,000 is 5,750 a year. Over two years that's 11,500 seniors added to Canada's aging demographic by immigration. Over three years that's 17,250. In five years it's 28,750 extra seniors added. Rounding up, Canada adds an additional 30,000 seniors to its aging demographic every five years with an estimated 100,000 seniors waiting in the backlog. If our immigration system is supposed to combat Canada's aging population then why is it adding to it by importing 30,000 retirement age immigrants every five years?

This next part I consider an attack on old age security and Canadian senior citizens:

A private member's bill aimed at reducing the old age security residency requirement to three years died when Parliament was dissolved. It would have to be re-introduced under the new government.

The private member's bill mentioned above is Private Member's Bill C-362 and it was tabled by Liberal Party MP Ms. Colleen Beaumier. The riding she represented was Brampton West but with the dissolution of parliament Andrew Kania is the new Liberal Party nominee. Brampron Springdale is the eastern neighbour of Brampton West.

I suspect political opportunism is at play here coupled with a sense of entitlement and not fairness to Canadian seniors. It seems some immigrants see Canada as a retirement plan, contributing little, if anything, to the country yet expecting to collect old age security and benefits. Also, some immigrants regrade Canada as a nursing home for their parents dumping the financial obligations onto the Canadian tax payers. We cannot afford this.

The apparent penniless state of immigrant seniors tells us of the sham that is the family reunification act. We are told immigrant communities, particularly South Asian cultures, value family above all else yet once their parents are imported it seems their obligation to them disappears and now their parents become burdens to the Canadian public. And now these seniors want access to Old Age Security after a mere three year residency. If given that will they demand the maximum benefits denied them becuase they did not immigrate here at the age of 18 and have resided in the country for 40 years? How will this affect Canadians seniors on a fixed income? Will we have to divert money out of other public services to fund immigrant seniors sense of entitlement?

It also shows how Canada's immigration system worsens the aging population problem while claiming to alleviate it. Furthermore, were are informed how the family reunification scheme has no real benefits for Canadian society if immigrants are importing their parents who then go on social assistance because their adult children reneged on their obligations to take care of them.

Regarding Private Member's Bill C-362 our sense of fairness tells us it is wrong and should be defeated. MPs representing ridings with significant immigrant populations may support it but that is due to political opportunism and not what is good and right with Canadians, especially Canadian seniors.

Thursday, 9 October 2008

It is amusing becuase he is saying that a city whose population is half immigrant (and rising) and almost "visible minority majority", making it a strange place for most Canadians, has become unwelcoming to immigrants. It is frustrating becuase all the problems that has made Toronto "unwelcoming" is becuase of mass immigration yet he fails to acknowledge this choosing instead to engage in cognitive dissonance since immigration fact isn't gelling with immigration myth.

Toronto's welcome mat fraying

Oct 07, 2008 04:30 AMRoyson James

It's not news that recent immigrants struggle to find their place in their adopted home. One would expect newcomers to be slow to acquire language, employment, cultural capital and social contacts that make one feel connected to a place.

But a new report, the annual checkup of Toronto's social, economic and environmental health called Vital Signs, suggests that those who arrived here in the past decade face more intransigent barriers than ever before, just at the time when many other countries are clamouring for the dwindling workforce this group represents.

What barriers is he talking about? He doesn't mention it in his commentary but let's think about that for a moment. Toronto, and the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) is the most ethnically diverse it has ever been with some areas hosting such a heavy concentration of one ethnic group they are more akin to colonies then Canadian neighbourhoods. The private sector and especially the public sector have actively sought to reflect this diversity in their workplaces. With established ethnic communities in place (allowing one to live in Canada as if they never left the home country) coupled with preferential hiring for immigrants in some sectors of the labour market I say it has never been better for immigrants in the city of Toronto. So what exactly is he talking about?

As for "clamouring for the dwindling workforce this group represents", well that needs to be teased out. What group are "other countries" "clamouring" for? Are the unskilled relatives of sponsoring immigrants apart of this "group" "other countries" are "clamouring" for? How about the many unskilled immigrants who enter Canada as bogus refugees? How about the unskilled foreign temp workers who never leave or the ones who overstay their visas and go underground? Are "other countries" "clamouring" for the approximately 3/4 of all immigrants to Canada who enter the country purely for humanitarian reasons and thus are not even required to have any language skills to say nothing of pertinent job skills?

Prepared annually by the Toronto Community Foundation, this year's 10th edition says the unemployment rate for recent immigrants is nearly double that of native Canadians. Even long-time immigrants, here for up to 10 years, experience jobless rates 37 per cent higher than Canadian-born residents.

This may be causing a drag on the availability of immigrant workers for the Toronto region.

In 2001, Toronto was chosen by half the 250,638 immigrants to Canada. Our take has fallen steadily, to 36.8 per cent last year.

This does not appear to be a function of fewer immigrants coming to Canada, though the overall numbers dropped by 15,000 last year. Arrivals in 2001 were roughly the same as in 2006, for example: about 250,000. Yet, Toronto received only 99,293 two years ago, compared to 125,178 in 2001.

Perhaps Toronto proper received only 99,293 immigrants but if the GTA is included the region still attracts roughly 40-50% of all immigrants to Canada.

"In the 1980s it took immigrants eight years to achieve income parity," says Rahul Bhardwaj, president and CEO of the foundation. "In the last decade, it took 12 years. (That's) 50 per cent longer ... Recent immigrants are hired half as often and get half the salary."

Some projections predict that by 2011 all net growth to the labour force will consist of immigrants. Whereas Canada traditionally had an unlimited supply of skilled people emigrating here, all G7 countries now face declining birth rates and have a huge appetite for new workers. Global competition for the skilled is growing at precisely the time that Canada is scoring less strongly as a good place to settle.

"In Canada, if immigrants are critical to our economic and social health, we have to replenish our stock. But has the last 10 years in this city given any indication that it would be worth their while to come here?" says Bhardwaj.

What the above fails to take into consideration is the character of the global labour market. It is quite possible to outsource many jobs now which also includes white-collar work. Engineering, architectural, IT, even some medical tasks can be outsourced to competent workers in India or China at a fraction of the cost of a North American labourer yet these are much of the workers Canada is importing. The West is as quickly outsourcing much of the work it is "clamouring" for. That is why much of the projected job growth are jobs that cannot be sent overseas. These include transportation drivers, retail sales staff, construction, fast food workers and hotel staff, nursing, anything that cannot be sent abroad but can only be done locally. There may be a shortage of nurses but there is also a shortage of minimum wage workers and the later is where many immigrants to Canada end up being regardless of their credentials.

It is also necessary to point out the performance of immigrants who arrived in the 1980s and beyond. In the 1980s Canada accepted fewer immigrants, 100,000+ fewer in fact, and it was tied to Canada's expected future economic performance. It was in 1988 that the inept Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney not only upped the intake by 100,000 in one fell swoop but estranged it from Canada's economic needs. It should be little wonder then as to why post 1990 immigrants are doing so poorly compared to previous cohorts. We flooded the labour market.

Some immigration is necessary but too much is not and that is the problem: Canada accepts too many immigrants and has been doing so for too long. If Royson James can bother himself to realize that perhaps mass immigration has saturated Toronto with superfluous labour, making it difficult for immigrant and Canadian, then perhaps it will all make sense to him. He will see why immigrants and Canadians are struggling, why poverty and crime is on the rise in many immigrant heavy neighbourhoods, and why post 1990 immigrants are fairing so bad. It's the numbers.

But alas he leaves us with these concluding words:

Immigrants have been a blessing to Toronto. Keep this relationship blooming.

If he means increases in traffic congestion and the threat of toll roads to tackle it; the idling traffic and the increases of pollution as a result of it; rapid population increases fueling urban sprawl and the loss of fertile arable land and green spaces; social divisions, ethnic rivalries and ghettoizing effects; an increase in the production of garbage and what to do with it; rising crime and poverty rates; loss of Canadian public spaces making Canadians feel like strangers in their own land; racial hiring quotas that discriminate against Canadians all in the name of diversity; the downward pressure on wages and salaries; etc, etc, etc; that these are blessings then I guess immigration is a good thing so keep it coming. I know I am focusing on the negative here but these must be weighed against the positive which is constantly paraded in public discourse as if there are no negative effects associated with mass immigration. And I think the negatives now outweigh the positives. Funny thing is, it wasn't like that before and it shouldn't be like that at all.

If we really want to get serious about helping immigrants then we must ask ourselves if Canada is accepting too many immigrants. The answer is obviously yes. If Toronto's welcome mat is indeed fraying it's becuase of mass immigration. Too much of something can ruin a good thing.

The comments to the piece are interesting. It seems the readers know more about the situation than Mr. James.

"Look at who's committing these crimes ... They're not the kid that grew up next door," Richardson told the Calgary newsmagazine Fast Forward Weekly.

"Particularly in big cities, we've got people that have grown up in a different culture," he said.

"And they don't have the same background in terms of the stable communities we had 20, 30 years ago in our cities and don't have the same respect for authority or people's person or property."

However:

Richardson later said he regretted the remarks and was referring to a "small minority" of people.

"I soon realized that my comments could be misconstrued in a way that does not reflect my longstanding support for immigration and diversity," he said in a statement released Thursday.

I don't think this man is a racist and he should not resign his seat for making the comments that he did even though the major opposition parties, all of them being left of centre which is a testament to the lack of real political diversity in this country, are clamoring for him to step down.

But is he wrong? It's hard to tell since race based statistics, including citizenship status, regarding crime are not kept. But if a daily reading of the pro-mass immigration, pro multiculturalism, "progressive" left of centre Toronto Star is any indication of who is committing much of the crime in Canada's largest and most diverse city then it would appear that Lee Richardson was not speaking out of line.

If someone is slain or murdered either by gun play or other then more often than not the perpetrator and victim are non-white which should not be mistaken for black. Even though the black community is plagued by gun violence surprisingly I have found that more members of the South Asian and Asian communities are victims of and perpetrators of violent crime than whites.

Ignoring the role mass immigration has played in escalating crime rates across the country is a disservice becuase failure to do so prevents us from talking about it and correcting the situation. If Lee Richardson is to be understood correctly he is saying that immigrants are committing crimes out of proportion to their numbers. And, if I may add, if it is not them then it is their Canadian born children. I believe this to be true. We are told that crime rates are in fact down but relative to what year? According to this Toronto Police detective crime rates are not down just the reporting of them are. In Ottawa more than half the members of its street gangs are foreign born.

How has mass immigration contributed to this increase in crime across the country? For starters, the very fact that Canada accepts far too many immigrants is the main problem. It makes it all the more difficult to weed out criminals. Secondly, our refugee system is ripe for abuse and is most likely the main avenue criminals use to get into the country. This is why refugees should be vetted abroad before they are allowed to set foot on Canadian soil. Thirdly, mass immigration contributes to the sustaining of and increase of poverty rates in Canadian cities. It is no coincidence that high crime areas of Toronto are also immigrant heavy areas. Fourth, some immigrant groups have recreated the social dysfunctions in Canada that has rendered their home countries failures. It may be true that those who have committed the crimes in Canada are Canadian born but Canada is not to blame for their behaviour since these kids were raised in a cultural environment more akin to the home country of their immigrant parents than one of Canadian values. Canada should stay clear of the trap of cultural relativism and be more discriminating in the selection of its immigrants with particular attention being paid to countries with incredible crime rates.

Many immigrants come to Canada to escape crime in their home countries. What does it say about this country when these immigrants who came here encounter the crime they were trying to flee? How valuable does the immigrant see him or herself when they witness that Canada is importing and even granting citizenship to criminals? What does it say about the value of Canadian citizenship as a whole?